Good number of degrees of freedom, many of which (tail wagging and drooping, blinking, ear-rotation, head movements, coloured lights) are well suited for expressive communication. Fast and stable platform that works well on most smooth surfaces.

Support for ROS and our own unique brain-based biomimetic control system 3BCS.

High-level control software stored on u-SD card.

MOVEMENT

The MiRo platform is built around a core of a differential drive base and a three Degrees of Freedom (DoF) (lift, pitch, yaw) neck. Additional DoFs include rotation for each ear, tail droop and wag, and eyelid open/close. All DoFs are equipped with proprioceptive sensors (potentiometers for absolute positions and optical shaft encoders for wheel speed). The platform also has an on-board speaker currently programmed to produce mammal-like vocal sounds.

SENSING

Stereo cameras in the eyes and stereo microphones in the base of the ears are complemented by a sonar range-finder in the nose. In the body, four light level sensors are placed at each corner of the base, two infrared 'cliff' sensors point down from its front face, four capacitive sensors are arrayed along the inside of the body shell providing sensing of direct human touch and an additional four over the top and back of the head (behind the ears). Internal sensors include twin accelerometers, a temperature sensor, and battery voltage monitoring.

CONTROL AND INTERFACES

MiRo's default control architecture (3BCS, the brain-based biomimetic control system) is based on twenty years of research on animal brains and behaviour and is the first of its kind, its layers distributed across the three embedded ARM processors. However, if you prefer, you can control MiRo directly from your favourite development environment. You can control MiRo remotely through WiFi or Bluetooth and stream data or internal state. If you are a ROS programmer, MiRo can be easily configured as a ROS node.